Maggie Gee - The White Family

Hillesden isn’t dying. It’s coming up.

Shirley was still in China and Crystal, looking for a present for her father.

Something nice. He won’t be here forever. (Or else Dad will beat around our hearts forever. Maybe the Africans are right about that, God forgive me for thinking it.)

It isn’t easy, buying presents for fathers. Particularly my father.

Something English would be a good present (but what is there that’s English, these days?)

‘Can I help you, madam, or are you just looking?’ The salesman was young, with an insinuating manner. ‘Some people find it a bit overwhelming.’

‘I don’t,’ said Shirley, giving him a look.

His smile faltered, and then recovered. ‘Are you buying a gift?’

‘Yes.’

‘I thought as much.’ He looked pleased with himself.

‘For my father.’ As she said it, her eye fell on a defiant little figure of John Bull with a squat glass bulldog beside him. The man’s face was a cross between a baby’s and a butcher’s, made rounder by his low flat topper, his waistcoat an engraved Union Jack, straining across a sturdy pot-belly. ‘That’s quite nice.’ It wasn’t, to her, but it was small enough for a bedside table.

‘Would you like a closer look, madam?’

The thing had a small square pedestal, engraved at the front with ‘Land of Hope And Glory’ and at the back ‘John Bull Esq’. Although Dad looked nothing like him, of course, there was something about the way John Bull stood, braced to the world, feet splayed, shoulders back, jaw pushed out towards the foreigners — Shirley had seen Alfred stand like that, back to the flower-beds, arms sternly folded, glaring across at some Asian children wondering whether to play ball on the grass.

‘How much?’ she asked the salesman, rather curtly.

‘Just seventy-five pounds,’ he grinned, bold as brass. ‘It’s a very fine piece. The Americans like them. It reminds them of the war, and Winston Churchill.’

Shirley hated to admit something cost too much. It mattered to her that people knew she could afford things.

‘It’s made in Britain, of course?’

‘Without a doubt.’ But he sounded shifty.

‘I’ll take it,’ she said, hardly missing a beat, flicking out her quiver of credit cards, signing.

Turned, and someone was beaming at her. A keenly smiling face, narrow, shining, with wide red lips, pulled right back over large white teeth.

‘Sorry, I don’t know —’

‘Susie Flinders.’

She couldn’t link the name to the beaming face.

‘We met yesterday! Darren’s wife!’

‘Of course. Forgive me.’ Shirley thought, do I kiss her? She’s my brother’s wife, but I hardly know her.

‘So wonderful to meet you!’ Susie was all animation, yet her cheeks were gaunt, and her eyes did not look happy. ‘I’m just hunting down a few things for Darren. The food department next door is so great. They’ve got gluten-free, vegan, macrobiotic, and all the special English things … Darren, poor darling, is exhausted today.’

‘Travelling —?’

‘Oh no, he lives his life on planes. The emotional shock, you know. Your father.’

‘We knew Dad was bad a week ago.’

‘The shock of seeing him like that.’

Well Darren didn’t break a leg getting here . Shirley found it hard to look her in the eyes. Her fizz, her loudness, her overload of scent; Giorgio, was it? The American choice.

‘So what are you shopping for, Shirley?’

Shirley made an effort. ‘A present for Dad.’

‘You’ve been a great daughter, Darren says. It all falls on the ones who stay behind, doesn’t it?’

Shirley thought, I’m a doormat, to her. ‘I’ve hardly been a model daughter. I married a black man, which outraged my father.’

‘Darren says he tried to give you support.’

Shirley felt her smile go even stiffer. ‘Did he? Well … at a distance.’ (So Darren thought he was noble, did he, coming to the wedding and then Kojo’s funeral?)

But Susie beamed on, not noticing the chill. ‘So. I’ve got my Earl Grey tea-bags and my Thick Cut marmalade and my Gentleman’s Relish and my Bath Olivers … Darren has a passion for things from home. The only thing I miss is the NHS.’

‘There’s not a lot of it to miss, any more.’

‘You’ve got to fight for it. It’s unique, isn’t it?’

‘You’re preaching to the converted.’

‘Have you seen any of the pieces Darren’s done about what’s happening to the NHS?’

‘I don’t need to read Darren’s pieces. I know about it first-hand, thanks. I live here. And my boyfriend’s a Patient Care Officer.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way —’ There was an awkward pause, then Susie grinned again. ‘I do hope we can all get together some time.’

Shirley managed to meet her eyes, and smile back. ‘His name is Elroy. He can’t come to the hospital. Dad would have a fit. He’s black.’

‘Your dad really has a problem with that?’

‘Is the Pope a Catholic?’

‘Shirley, I’m so sorry.’ Susie touched Shirley’s arm.

(Everything she did was frenetic, overdone, as if she was an actress from a faster film. Shirley sensed she was already bored, already halfway out of the door — And yet there was something sympathetic about her. At least she tried. You could feel the effort.)

‘I’d love to talk further with you, Shirley, but I left my umbrella in Quarantino’s —’

‘Quarantino’s … that’s posh, isn’t it? At least, I’ve read about it in the papers.’

‘Probably because it’s a journalists’ watering-hole. We tend to eat there when we come to London.’

When we come to London . As if they often do. Perhaps they did, and never got in touch. It felt like a small sharp kick in the stomach. ‘Do you always travel with Darren, then?’

‘Oh no. You know, I have my own assignments.’

‘Assignments? Aren’t you a therapist?’

‘I trained as a therapist. But I’m a journalist also. It pays better!’

That curious mixture of English and American … All those — ists. She could pick and choose. If you had an education, you could pick and choose. But Shirley refused to be jealous of her. ‘Maybe you and Darren could come for a meal. I guess you’re going to be around for a bit.’

An awkward silence. ‘In fact — Darren’s planning on flying back tomorrow night. Your father seems to be doing OK —’

‘So this is the classic flying visit.’ It sounded more bitter than Shirley meant.

‘Darren has a lot of problems with your father. It isn’t easy for him, coming home.’

‘None of us finds my dad very easy.’

‘Darren’s holding on to a lot of anger. He has to work through it. Work with it. I’ve told him frankly I think we should stay.’

There were two furrows of tension in Susie’s wide brow, as if she felt guilty, as if she worried — But what was all this about Darren’s anger? Poor old Dad, thought Shirley, suddenly. He loved Darren so; Darren was his favourite. ‘It’s just that Dad really likes to see him,’ said Shirley, but she didn’t want to rub it in. She continued, ‘In any case, he’s seen him, hasn’t he? So that’s OK.’ (Why must she always be nice?)

‘Shirley, it’s been great meeting with you. I hope we can talk again properly. Really.’ Susie was already tapping her feet, waisted heels as sharp as knives, shiny black shoes, almost blue-black, curving sheerly into her instep. Shoes for a quick neat getaway — She bent like a dancer, kissed Shirley’s cheek, giving her no time to return the gesture.

She was gone, with a shake and a stroke of her hair, her shiny, healthy, American hair, narrow hips whipping through the flashing displays, turning for a last swift wave of her hand, white light on her teeth as she mouthed ‘Bye’.